Le Tour doping/speculation/rumour/conjecture thread

doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching the racing though

This a million percent

If they all dope or none dope or some don’t it’s still a great sport/event and 99% of the drama isn’t with the GC boys

doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching the racing though

unless your name is Lance. 🙄

If you’re talking about coming in to the finish then they’re probably not actually doing turns any longer than they would in a TTT and it makes sense to burn them out as they won’t be needed again – in such a situation it would cause a lot of confusion if you had chaps trying to circulate back in.

If you were talking about earlier in the stage then they’re not doing TTT pace, and generally the guys aren’t burned out by their turn on the front and come back for another go. If you’re talking about the climbs then it’s a lot different to a TTT as only the very strongest on the team will survive to near the end. The weaker guys will blow up even if they’re sitting in the pack, so you might as well get them to do useful work as long as they can, which allows the stronger domestiques to pull a bit further up the climb than they’d have managed if they’d been on the front working earlier.

thanks to the guys who replied to my previous question.

I think Froome looked a bit vulnerable yesterday. Contador and Valverde couldn’t make moves stick but eventually nibbles got one to hold and Froome looked briefly in trouble.

I’m more concerned by the way G keeps coming back, I suspect he may be microdosing, and demand his samples be checked immediately for traces of kevlar, concrete, girders and nails.

I don’t think Froome looked in trouble at all yesterday and Nibali is no threat to anyone. I guarantee that if he’d been a minute behind Froome in the GC it would have been a different story but someone who is 8 and a half minutes back and has a descent to do isn’t going to do that much.

doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching the racing though

I’m envious of those of you for whom this is true. For me, unfortunately it does affect the enjoyment. The hard graft and lack of shortcuts to sporting success is what makes events like the TdF exciting for me. If you change that by providing shortcuts (ie doping – yes, I know you still have to train silly hard but it’s still a shortcut), it changes the core of what the sport is.

I’m envious of those of you for whom this is true. For me, unfortunately it does affect the enjoyment.

It does and it doesn’t for me.

The current race, not at all – well apart from the distraction that all this Sky conspiracy stuff is causing.

That Vuelta where Chris Horner dominated by riding up all the hills stood up was like a pantomime though and utterly ruined.

doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching the racing though

I want to believe in my heroes. I want to know that what I’m seeing is real. Simples.

Anything less than that undermines the whole sport.

When you see crazy stuff like Horner or 50rpm attacks in the Tour of Turkey then you just have to laugh. How is that not entertainment in itself? 😆

Where we at, Froome still doping but Sagan’s clean?

Nah, Froome’s a Brit so he’s clean. Sagan is a foreigner riding for that Oleg bloke so he’s obviously on the juice.

When you see crazy stuff like Horner or 50rpm attacks in the Tour of Turkey then you just have to laugh. How is that not entertainment in itself?

Well I do love a good panto, but only at Christmas time.

If you are on this thread you find some entertainment with the doping gossip.

If you really believe the majority are now clean then I can see how the odd bit of news would disrupt your viewing. If you can take it all for what it (most likely) is then it makes watching much easier.

Pinot Power Data

http://www.fredericgrappe.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/pinot-ppr.pdf

If you really believe the majority are now clean

Do you really believe the majority are dirty Dan W?

Awesomez, I could beat Pinot in a 30 second sprint. No wonder he’s getting his arse handed to him 😉

If doping doesn’t detract from your enjoyment of the sport, how would you feel if a rider won by, say, shoving another rider into a ditch? Would that spoil the race for you?

If the answer is yes, why is that different from doping? It’s just gaining an advantage by breaking the rules.

If you answer no, where would you draw the line? What would someone have to do to spoil the Tour for you?

You’d (well – I’d ) just think it would be more efficient to have one bloke on the front going full chat for, say, two minutes, then rotate him out and have someone else on the front for another two minutes, etc etc. There must be a logical reason why they don’t, I’m damn sure they know a lot more about it than I do.

You’re assuming the other 150+ riders on other teams in the peleton will graciously move out of your way to allow you join nicely back into the rear of your own train…

What would someone have to do to spoil the Tour for you?

Switch the tele off?

What would someone have to do to spoil the Tour for you?

Switch the tele off?

It’s not my fault!

You’re assuming the other 150+ riders on other teams in the peleton will graciously move out of your way to allow you join nicely back into the rear of your own train…

They might not, but the gentleman in yellow at the rear of the Sky train probably would.

If you’re talking about coming in to the finish then they’re probably not actually doing turns any longer than they would in a TTT and it makes sense to burn them out as they won’t be needed again – in such a situation it would cause a lot of confusion if you had chaps trying to circulate back in.

If you were talking about earlier in the stage then they’re not doing TTT pace, and generally the guys aren’t burned out by their turn on the front and come back for another go. If you’re talking about the climbs then it’s a lot different to a TTT as only the very strongest on the team will survive to near the end. The weaker guys will blow up even if they’re sitting in the pack, so you might as well get them to do useful work as long as they can, which allows the stronger domestiques to pull a bit further up the climb than they’d have managed if they’d been on the front working earlier.
Thankyousir! Very interesting and entirely logical. 🙂

If doping doesn’t detract from your enjoyment of the sport, how would you feel if a rider won by, say, shoving another rider into a ditch? Would that spoil the race for you?

If the answer is yes, why is that different from doping? It’s just gaining an advantage by breaking the rules.

If you answer no, where would you draw the line? What would someone have to do to spoil the Tour for you?

If someone gets popped then they are dealt with accordingly, just the same as if someone pushed another rider in to a ditch it would be dealt with. What we are moaning about is the *idea* that rider x, y or z may be up to shady stuff without any real knowledge. Until they are shown to have cheated in any way I’m happy to just watch the racing. The lack of knowing for sure doesn’t bother me.

Pinot Power Data

It seems like a very flat profile to me. ~5w/kg at Z1 then ~6w/kg FTP (if you take 95% of the 20 minute power). Crazy ability to be able to ride at will at around 310-410W 😯

The lack of knowing for sure doesn’t bother me

That’s not what I’m getting at. My question is directed specifically at anyone who is happy to accept that doping is taking place (without sanction) and says it doesn’t detract from their enjoyment of the sport: “I don’t care if they are doping”.
If you think like that, I’m asking if there is any form of cheating that would invalidate the sport for you, and if there is, why is doping a special case among the various forms of cheating?

Why should any form of cheating completely invalidate the sport? Maybe it invalidates an individuals achievement at the time but cheating happens in all walks of life and will always happen despite any checks or sanctions in place. If something was invalidated as soon as someone cheated then there wouldn’t be too much left to cling on to!

Sky have released their version of the data from stage 10.

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/07/sky-releases-chris-froomes-srm-data-from-stage-10/

Again, this is their data that they have chosen to release, so the naysayers will say it’s manipulated/selective.

Interesting that Brailsford is consistently very open and clear on record about being clean (maybe it’s the media focus but seem to rarely hear this from other teams). Either he’s telling the truth, is VERY confident of never getting caught, or just plain brazen.

And as expected it’s done nothing to help their case. The doubters are quoting that CF was riding faster than others at lower W/Kg figures (Yates, Gesink, etc). Then questioning the 6% correction figure sky are using for the oval rings and so on.

It’s just silly. There are numbers all over the place, estimates of weight that make a massive difference and assumptions on relative performances.

If you’ve ever tried to argue with a proper conspiracy theorist you’ll realise it’s utterly pointless. There is always a “but that’s what they want you to think” kind of excuse.

I think that’s what they’re dealing with here in some of the online naysayers.

Would anyone on this thread be brave enough to admit that they’ve changed their mind though?

In which way?

As I’ve said before some of the numbers, results, tactics and similarities to past circumstances do concern me but I’m offsetting that with Sky and others saying and to some extent doing the right things to show they’re clean.

That said, Sky haven’t helped their cause by making big pronouncements in the past (we’ll only use British doctors, free of doping taint, etc) and then not sticking to them or being evasive/conflicting (Tramadol, ketones)

(apologies if already posted)

I know that there are accusations that Walsh has “gone native” but this is an interesting excerpt from an interview with him by the BBC

David Walsh – Sunday Times chief sports writer
“I’ve also spent a lot of time looking at the people around Chris Froome, looking at what’s going on in Team Sky. We’re now three years into the Froome story. At the three-year point into my investigation into Lance Armstrong I had six people in his team who told me he doped.
“I haven’t had one person, who works with Sky now or who was sacked by Sky, who has given me anything to go on or investigate. In fairness to Chris Froome my conclusion has to be that I’ve seen nothing that indicates he dopes and I’m inclined to believe him when he says he doesn’t. It doesn’t mean I know, but I certainly believe his claims.”

It’s nuts, isn’t it, really – a physiologist goes on telly in France and claims he’s worked out Froome was banging out over 7 watts per kilo, Sky release data which shows he WASN’T banging out over 7 watts a kilo, and FB is alive with doubters saying “Sky haven’t done enough, they need to prove more”. What about the tin-hat wearing feller who reckons he can work out power figures from watching television? He hasn’t proved jack shit – he should never work in the sport or media again for making career-threatening claims like that. In contrast, this is the clincher for me, from David Walsh –

“I’ve also spent a lot of time looking at the people around Chris Froome, looking at what’s going on in Team Sky. We’re now three years into the Froome story. At the three-year point into my investigation into Lance Armstrong I had six people in his team who told me he doped. I haven’t had one person, who works with Sky now or who was sacked by Sky, who has given me anything to go on or investigate. In fairness to Chris Froome my conclusion has to be that I’ve seen nothing that indicates he dopes and I’m inclined to believe him when he says he doesn’t. It doesn’t mean I know, but I certainly believe his claims.”

Sky’s figures indicate fairly conclusively for me that Froome is performing at an entirely realistically high level, and no-one around him is muttering to journos that anything’s amiss. It’s not scientific proof, but it’s a load closer to scientific proof than anything Sallet’s spewed out.

Edit – ah, beaten to the Walsh quote. 🙂 I think the argument he’s Sky’s man only works if you think he would actively ignore or overlook evidence of doping, and I have sufficient respect for him that it’s not the case.

Sky release data which shows he WASN’T banging out over 7 watts a kilo

But that’s the thing. They haven’t. It’s a question of trust, isn’t it? Exactly as it was before the data was released. If this was Lance, they’d have just released adjusted figures to show whatever they wanted. To be clear, I’m not saying that’s what Sky have done but what would have stopped them doing so? As such, it proves nothing.

Well ….I belive Froome is clean!!….there I’ve said it!!

Th bloke has a weird riding style …..so to ride like he does is weird too…super human even…. Doesn’t mean he is a cheat…….

It’s just sour grapes coz the Brits are winning…FROOME!!!!

Aaa, ok. Well, if we think they’re just telling lies, the whole exercise is pointless. Other than saying what the figures are, what can they do? If they hung you from a helicopter so you could look over his shoulder at the figures on his computer as he rides, there’s no way of proving that they haven’t been skewed, shirley.

Ever watch Michael Johnson running? Most ungainly style ever, but it certainly worked for him.

Doesn’t have any impact on if he was clean or not, though. (FWIW, I think he was. )

But you can’t PROOVE an absence of drugs, short of sticking a GoPro on Froome for every minute of the Tour and taking blood out of him every 10 minutes.

At the end of the day, Froome has cycled for over 2 weeks and managed to cover the a couple of thousand of km in 3 minutes less than anyone else in the race. If he is the only doper in the field, those drugs ain’t working terribly well are they!

So you either accept the simplistic perspective – he’s as clean as anyone else in the race, just a bit better, or you continue with paranoia.

One is easier for me to accept than the other!

@CaptainFlashhear – or Paula Radcliffe.

Froome COULD be being dragged along by the force field of an invisible alien spaceship, Sky haven’t produced any data to disprove it.